Millionaires to Congress: ‘Tax Me More!’
As the congressional Super Committee struggles to meet next week’s deadline for a plan to find $1.2 trillion in budget savings over the course of the next decade, some millionaires are targeting Capitol Hill with an unlikely message: Tax us more.
Earlier this week, we reported that Republican members of the committee proposed permanently extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, a move that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka dubbed “Robin Hood in reverse.”
At an ad hoc hearing on job creation, sponsored by the Congressional Progressive Caucus today, members of the group Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength testified to advocate for a more progressive tax structure that would ultimately tax them more. The alternative to continuing to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will likely mean cuts in programs vital to the well-being of working people, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Trumka: Boost Fairness and Revenue with Estate Tax Reinstatement
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and hundreds of other multimillionaires (and some billionaires, like Steinbrenner) who have passed away this year disproved the old adage, “the only two things certain in life are death and taxes.”
They couldn’t dodge death, but their estates have dodged taxes—some $14.8 billion so far this year, according to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). The federal estate tax that in the past applied to multimillion-dollar fortunes fully expired at the end of 2009, after President George W. Bush’s 2001 $1.35 trillion tax cut package for the wealthy exempted larger and larger estates from the levy each year.
Today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, philanthropist and Walt Disney heir Abigail Disney and others called for a reinstatement of the tax. Read the rest of this entry »
King Day Participants Celebrate 2008 Wins, Plan for Future
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The inauguration of the nation’s first African American president next week is just the beginning of a historic shift in the nation’s politics, and civil rights activists from across the country are gathering this weekend to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and discuss how to complete King’s dream of a just society.
During the annual AFL-CIO King Day celebration, which begins today and runs through Jan. 19 in New Orleans, more than 200 participants will examine what the 2008 election means for our nation and working families. Responding to President-elect Obama’s call to honor King with community service, the participants will join with hundreds of area union members and roll up their sleeves in more than 20 different community service projects in a city that continues to suffer three years later from the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
